RBFF webinar details Hispanic outreach campaign

A Vamos A Pescar event in Texas tapped the RBFF and its partnership with Disney to attract potential Hispanic boaters and anglers.

The U.S. Hispanic population is in a baby boom — at 53 million today, it’s projected to reach 65 million by 2020.

Between 2006 and 2011, overall fishing participation has risen 11 percent. But among Hispanic Americans, the numbers remain flat.

“The Hispanic population of fishermen actually declined, and especially when population is exploding, I think we need to be doing better than that and I think we can do better than that,” Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation president and CEO Frank Peterson said during a webinar Thursday to outline the five-year Hispanic outreach campaign in detail.

Peterson highlighted the recent launch of the Vamos A Pescar website in Spanish and English and nationwide public service announcements, a result of last year’s focus on content development.

This year, the campaign will seek to partner with media and retail outlets for programs in the two pilot states, Florida and Texas.

In 2015 the outreach will evolve to build test market learning and results, expand the whole campaign nationally and add TV public service announcements.

The following years will focus on building the program’s reach and analyze key performance indicators, Peterson said.

Vamos A Pescar is a responsive site — meaning it adapts, depending on the device being used to visit it — even though the regular Take Me Fishing site is not yet one.

“The adoption of technology with this audience is greater than the general market, so we built this in a responsive design, and over the next year Take Me Fishing will be converted, as well,” Peterson told the group of 99 listeners.

Although they weren’t slated to begin until 2015, public service announcements already playing nationally on radio stations that cater to Spanish speakers are designed to drive traffic to the Vamos A Pescar website, Peterson said. (Radio was the chosen medium because it has a large reach in the Hispanic American community, he said.)

There they will find several educational links about licensing and boat registration, environmental places and benefits of boating and fishing, for example. They also will be able to link to specific events that businesses will have opportunities to list, provided they meet certain criteria — such as having a few Spanish-speaking people on hand to help translate, if necessary.

One recent Texas event involved giveaways from Disney, which also has partnered with the RBFF in the Take Me Fishing effort, and also focuses heavily on attracting and marketing to the Hispanic population.

“A big thing we want to do is capture email addresses of all the people who come to these events, and capture data on language preferences and send them information about other events and shows,” Peterson said. One thing the research has shown is that “unless you specifically invite the Hispanic audience, they’re not necessarily going to show up.”

Read more about the RBFF’s Hispanic outreach in an upcoming issue of Soundings Trade Only.